The conventional automatic or semi-automatic shotgun comprises a barrel, a cartridge chamber, a forestock (forend with forend cover), a butt stock and a receiver. The receiver houses the gun breech in which a spring-pressed breech block reciprocates between a retracted loading position and an advanced battery position. The breech block is biased in the direction of the battery position. A latch maintains the breech block open in its loading position.
The latch is controlled by a push button which extends outwardly from a side face of the receiver housing. It is operable by a finger of the marksman as he holds the gun in shooting position. In single shot or multiple shot procedures the sequence of operations to prepare to fire the gun is as follows:
First, with the breech open, a cartridge is placed in the chamber through the loading port. If two or more shots are to be fired, cartridges are placed in the cartridge magazine.
The cartridge latch is operated by depressing the push button using a finger or the thumb. This in turn releases tha spring-pressed breech latch so that the breech block moves forwardly under spring pressure into battery position. The gun now is ready to fire.
The push button which operates the latch is characterized by appreciable resistance to movement. In cold weather, when the marksman's fingers are numb, it is difficult to operate. In competitive clay pigeon shooting, when five or six hundred rounds a day may be fired by a single marksman, the finger which operates the push button becomes tired and sore.
It is the general purpose of the present invention to provide a firearm appliance which overcomes the foregoing problem and which makes it easy for the marksman to fire his gun any number of times without any discomfort whatsoever resulting from depression of the push button breech block latch control.
It is a further object of the invention to provide such an appliance which is simple, inexpensive, and applicable for use with a large number of the firearm models available on the market today without modification of either the firearm or the appliance.